Can They Be Trusted?

I almost wrote this piece when it was revealed that the US Government covered up discovering chemical weapons in Iraq to avoid embarassment. Nevertheless the inevitable can only be delayed, as they say, and a recent article on the ‘suicide note’ sent to MLK has finally given me the push needed write this post.

In simple terms, I feel that Government should not be allowed to decide for itself what it can and cannot keep secret. Whilst undoubtedly there is a case for some matters to be kept under the censor, there should be a heavy burden of proof on the censor to justify this.

The issue is most prominent in America, the worlds greatest superpower. Indeed the fact that the two cases cited earlier were US abuses of secrecy perhaps proves the old adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. However that is not to say it is an issue exclusively for superpowers, nor exclusively for ‘defense’ organisations. The NHS for example has a rather bad record regarding whistleblowers .

This should not be surprising, after all the internet surely shows us that given anonymity people can act appallingly. This is because the cover of anonymity/secrecy removes the burden of accountability thereby incentivizing immoral, illegal and other unacceptable behaviour which otherwise would be exposed and punished. This is true from the Army to the National Health Service.

Therefore I would suggest the need to apply some measures in order to promote transparency. Primarily, a codified list of what may and may not be censored. This is by no means a simple task; however, the main difficulty lies in deciding who judges whether a ‘state secret’ should be a secret. I would nominate the Supreme Court for this function. Lastly, at the very minimum anything made ‘top secret’ or gagged should have a shelf life short enough that it will come into the public domain soon enough that people can actually be held accountable, perhaps with exceptions in extreme circumstances.

Ultimately it comes down to the question ‘how many secrets should a Government keep?’, in my mind the only answer to that question is ‘as few as possible’.

 

-Horan Out

P.S. for more discussion on state secrets read here